ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some external influences that have had an impact upon the respective States' intellectual property protection environments during the post-Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) era, and the extent to which those influences may have contributed to enhanced or upgraded protection standards in other words, the TRIPS-plus environments. The term ‘TRIPS-plus’ lacks precise definition, but has come into increasingly common usage in the debate on contemporary intellectual property rights and their protection standards. The process of utilising bilateral trade and investment agreements to impose TRIPS-plus intellectual property protection has been described as a process which constitutes a ‘raising the bar’ or a ‘global ratcheting’ of intellectual property protection minimum benchmarks. The competitive advantage is further enhanced by making mandatory an extension of the patent protection term to compensate the patent owner for unreasonable delay in the market approval process.
